A Spirited Halloween
by B.A. Tyler
Summary: It's Halloween night and Hawkeye's all alone in the Swamp. Or is he?


**A Spirited Halloween**

Hawkeye was immersed in his latest issue of Nudesweek the first time it happened. He almost didn't hear it, that's how involved he was in the article about Helen and Ellen Jameson, blonde twins from New York who played on the same volleyball team. There was just something about nude volleyball, Hawkeye mused, that never got old.

He may have been drooling over the blonde bombshells from Brooklyn, but part of him was at least semi-alert to his surroundings, because he _did_ hear the noise. It just took him a while to process that he'd heard something strange, that's all. In a bit of a delayed reaction, he lifted his head, tearing his focus from the magazine, and looked around the Swamp. Nobody here, not that this was a revelation. He'd been alone for the better part of the last hour, ever since Charles went on post-op duty. So the noise had been…

What? His imagination? No, he didn't think so. It'd been… odd. Just as he was pondering what exactly it might've been, he heard it again: a very distinct but low, gravelly voice, saying his name. Dragging it out, though: "Pieeeeeerce." It didn't sound like anyone he knew.

He whipped his head around, casting his eyes about. The voice sounded very close. "What?" he asked out loud. "Who's here?"

Silence for a long time. He was starting to write it off as his imagination after all when it once more made itself heard. "Pieeeeeerce."

OK, where the hell was this coming from? He stood up from his cot and began to wander around the tent. He opened the door and looked left, then right, then left again. Not a soul was around. It was after dark but not particularly late, yet nobody was milling about, and certainly nobody was hanging out around his door, saying his name in some bizarre, spooky voice.

And that's when he suddenly remembered, and grinned broadly. Spooky. Of course! It was October 31st, for God's sake… he had nearly forgotten. Halloween. Which meant that one of his roomies—who was he kidding? He knew exactly _which_ roomie—was playing a joke on him. A supposedly scary joke, only now that he'd realized what was going on, there was nothing scary about it. In fact, it was kind of lame.

He called out in the darkness, "Nice try, Beej, but I'm onto you! Pretty lame prank, for the alleged king of all practical jokers." He shook his head and stepped back into the tent, ready to return to his magazine and forget all about the interruption.

A few minutes passed as he sat on his cot, still reading about Helen and Ellen and how they'd worked on perfecting their volleyball spikes (_Oh ho ho,_ he thought, _show me, girls!_), when the low voice returned. "Pieeeeeerce." This time it truly sounded like it was coming from _inside_ the Swamp.

Hawkeye looked around, starting to get annoyed. Maybe it was a recording, and if so, that meant there had to be a tape recorder hidden somewhere in the tent. He got onto his hands and knees and began crawling around, dust bunnies shifting and sailing as he moved, looking for a tape recorder. He found an old olive-drab T-shirt that had belonged to Trapper, three hypodermic needles (_that's dangerous!_ he thought, carefully placing them on B.J.'s footlocker), a letter that B.J. had gotten from his wife two months before, and three mismatched socks, but no tape recorder. The one that belonged to Charles was sitting on his writing desk, without any tape in it.

"Hmmm," he said out loud, now a little intrigued in spite of himself. "How did he manage this one? There's no recorder…"

Just as he was talking it over with himself, the voice returned, and this time it said something different. "The dead dance tonight," it whispered, and Hawkeye felt a chill pass through his body.

He must've heard wrong. There's no way… How could this disembodied voice—even if it _was_ Beej—know those words? Those particular words?

There was just no way in hell…

When he was 8 years old, one of his best friends, Dickie Barber, had said to him on Halloween: "You know what tonight's all about, don't you?"

"Sure," little Hawkeye had answered, "we go trick-or-treating. We get candy." He was looking forward to wearing his new cowboy costume that his mom had made for him.

"Well yeah," Dickie said with a sly smile, "that's _part_ of it. But that's not all. What the grown-ups don't want you to know is that there's something _else_ that goes on." He leaned closer to Hawkeye, his voice turning to a whisper, "The dead dance tonight. They climb out of their graves and they dance, and if you happen to see them because you crossed their path… they'll kill you!"

Hawkeye stood there with eyes wide, wondering fleetingly if his friend was lying, then knowing without a doubt that he was not. This was Dickie Barber, who knew _everything_, and if he said something, then it must be true.

The dead dance tonight.

It was a phrase that stuck with him. That night, he'd gone trick-or-treating with his folks at his side, but he felt scared the whole time just the same. He didn't let on that he was, but he kept glancing all around him, hoping beyond hope he wouldn't see any dancing dead people… hoping he would get through the evening without being killed.

He had a terrible nightmare that night in which he was chased all through the streets of Crabapple Cove by zombies—up Broad Street and through the park and across the railroad tracks he ran, trying desperately to get away. They were after him because he'd happened to see them dancing on their graves. Wasn't his fault… he hadn't gone looking for them… it just happened. Just when he was starting to think he would fall over from exhaustion, Hawkeye finally woke up from the nightmare, screaming for his mom. She rushed to his side and consoled him, convinced he had simply eaten too much candy before bed. He buried his face in the crook of her arm, shaking, crying. He didn't tell her what the dream was about.

All of this came back to him in a rush as he sat there in the Swamp, listening as the hushed but perfectly clear voice repeated, "The dead dance tonight."

His arms broke out in goosebumps. His pulse raced.

_I must have told B.J. the story at some point,_ he thought frantically. _I don't actually remember doing it, but hell… I __must__ have…__  
_  
"That's enough now!" he said, wishing his voice sounded more authoritative. It was actually rather shaky, much like his hands. To appear more in control of himself than he actually was, he stood up and began to pace. "The joke's not funny, Beej. So knock it off."

The voice chimed in with another "Pieeeeerce." Out of the corner of his eye, Hawkeye caught some kind of movement, something amorphous and gray, seeming to glide by to his left—and he whirled to get a look at it, but nothing was there.

"The dead dance… The dead dance… The dead dance tonight."

Hawkeye stood stock-still, forcing himself to slow his breathing, to calm down… telling himself it _had_ to be B.J. playing a joke—a pretty elaborate one, granted, but a joke nonetheless—

And then the P.A. suddenly blared to life, making him jump about a foot in the air, rattling his nerves even more: "Attention all personnel! Ambulances in the compound—we've got wounded! To the OR on the double, please!"

Hawkeye paused long enough for his heart to settle back into something close to its normal rhythm, and then he ran out of the Swamp and over to the OR, relieved and grateful. Work to the rescue. Thank God. No more Halloween-night nonsense.

When he got to the scrub room, Col. Potter was just about to step into the OR. "Got more than we can handle, Pierce, so hop to it. We'll have to make do with only the three of us."

Hawkeye stopped in the middle of pulling off his T-shirt. "What do you mean, three?"

"Sent Hunnicutt off to Battalion Aid a few hours ago. Didn't you know? They needed a surgeon post-haste. He'll be back in the A.M., but in the meantime, we've got our own party that needs catering. So get moving." He leaned against the door to the OR, about to head on through, then stopped in his tracks. "What's the matter, Pierce? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Hawkeye swallowed, though his mouth had gone desert-dry. "Y'know, Colonel… I think maybe I have."


End file.
